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nitascool

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Posts posted by nitascool

  1. Can you be frank with your friend and say just that: "I want to say yes, but I just don't think my 7th grader could handle all of the works on this reading list. Would you be open to a few alternatives to the more mature works?"

     

    From your friend's list that you posted, I think The Hobbit, Sherlock Holmes, Tom Sawyer, and possible Animal Farm could all work well for an honors middle school Lit. course. There is such a HUGE jump in ability and maturity between 6th graders and 8th graders! Just me from my own experience with teaching Lit. in a co-op setting: I prefer to err on the side of gentler works so as not to overwhelm or frustrate 6th graders, BUT, make all of the books ones that we can really dig in with deep discussion for the 8th graders...

     

    See this concurrent thread for more ideas for your friend: Book ideas for lit. analysis co-op class for middle schoolers. Here are ideas for alternative titles with "meat" for discussion and looking at literary elements for an honors-level middle school Lit. class that wouldn't overwhelm a 6th grader:

     

    - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)

    - Below the Root (Snyder)

    - Bridge to Terebithia (Paterson)

    - Bronze Bow (Speare)

    - Call of the Wild (London)

    - A Christmas Carol (Dickens) ** more advanced vocabulary

    - The Great and Terrible Quest (Lovett)

    - Maniac McGee (Spinnelli)

    - The Martian Chronicles (Bradbury)

    - The Pushcart War (Merrill)

    - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Taylor)

    - Sounder (Armstrong)

    - Treasure Island (Stevenson) ** more advanced vocabulary

    - Tuck Everlasting (Babbitt)

    - The Wednesday Wars (Schmidt)

    - White Fang (London)

    - A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle)

     

    Aside from The Great and Terrible Quest, and Maniac McGee my boys read these all by 4th grade. If I were going to have my gt son or my 2e son do a group study and any of these were on the list I would be highly skeptical of the gifted or honors title.

     

  2. We have used MUS with 4 children my oldest is just going into the upper levels and is doing well. If you do the program in the way it has been designed...teach it, and have them teach it back to prove mastery, then you will have no issues. If your child can prove mastery from level to level then at end of Pre-Calc. he/she can go into any STEM program (if that is their wish) within their mental scope without issue.

  3. Have you seen this?

     

    http://peacehillpress.com/history-geography/study-and-teaching-guide-for-the-history-of-the-ancient-world/

     

    There is also a map download.

     

    My dd used HOTW  in 9th or 10th grade before the teaching guide was published. She loved it. She read and wrote papers. We do art and music separately. 

     

    Thank you for your quick response. This is helpful. What did you use for art and music history?

  4. I don't know where your son is in spelling ability, but we have always used Sequential Spelling for my children. This is a program designed specifically for dyslexic children. It is repetitive in one since. Most of the words on a list are in the same word family. But it is not forcing the child to work on words that they don't know. 

     

    First the parent/teacher reads the word to the child then repeats the word in a sentence. The child writes the word then spells it aloud to the parent/teacher. If the child spelled it wrong then the parent repeats the word and tells the child how to spell it correctly. The next list will have a variation of the same word... jog, jogs, jogged, jogging. If you son needs more work on list words then this you could have him use Spelling City and just add the words he doesn't know each day.

     

    There are 180 lists in each book (most having 25 words). The program is designed to be done daily. If you began the program at level 1 now, he would have to do 252 lists a year until he graduated. That is doable and it would give him a very solid foundation in spelling. The lists begin easy with words like all, fall, stall (beginning of level 1) and progress to words like psychology and technicality (beginning of level 7). There is a placement test here.

     

    I have a natural speller with out any writing issues who can do a list in about 6 minutes and an Aspergers son who has difficulty writing who can do a list in about 15 minutes. As they go through a list if they don't know what a word means we mark it and later they look it up. In this way you could also use this as a vocabulary booster.

  5. I have a HG child with mild sensory issues (no SPD dx), an Aspy with SPD and ADHD sever with serious proprioceptive, vestibular, visual, auditory and oral issues, and two untested children who have the benefit of having been forced into a sensory bath from birth (because of big brothers OT at home). They have minor issues with tags, clothing, lights. My Aspy who is also GF, but not celiac, got vision therapy over the summer and all his ADHD behaviors are gone...we've worked for years on his SPD issues... his vision overload and auditory overload is gone after just six sessions of VT. We took him to Chuck E. Cheeses on the 15th and he had a blast... before he would have been crying because of all the sensory stimuli.

     

    advice and thoughts... yes it sounds like SPD and Vision issues. Your putting things in order sounds like a background/foreground vision issue. Vision issues can also cause all the SPD symptoms you just mentioned. If your vision is impaired it can cause issues across the other senses. A dev. Ophthalmologist (not a reg. eye doctor) would be my first stop for your 9yo.

     

    How long has your 9yo been completely GF? More then 6 months? If so you might also consider if she has a milk problem. 

     

     As far as her dude like behavior... she may have candida. If that is not the issue Vaseline may help along with a trim (I know that sounds odd but it has helped my ds with his pit hair). I would also look into having your daughter use Instead when the time comes. If she has SPD she will have a hard time with pads or tampons. You're whole family will also need to realize that hormone fluctuation can increase SPD irritability during that time, so she may need extra space or extra tlc during that time.

     

    Some help for the baby...just in general clothing irritation... Target has under-armor tight fitting baby, toddler and child clothes that may help. Don't buy any clothing with tags or labels. Be sure they didn't put uncomfortable paint stuff inside. Turn the heat up if you have too. Give as much as you can at home but also work on building tolerances. Reward systems work great... a cookie for two minutes in those uncomfortable shoes. 

     

    My Aspy spent the first 4 years of his life nearly naked... we finally convinced him that underwear was a must when his little sister turned 2. Lots of shaving cream, rice trays, dirt, sand, cloth exploration... give her more sensory input not less. If there is something she hates slowly acclimate her to it. If you have to dress her in tights on Christmas Sunday... then start now giving her tights to put on her hands and over her head...etc. And then let her whip those bad boys off on the car ride home.

     

    She seems to be displaying sensory overload but everything you described also describes the first year of a highly gifted child. So you may be looking at an overloaded child or a child who is super aware... or a combination. My HG son never slept more then 6 hours from birth until he turned 12. Now he sleeps 10-14 hours depending on how long I let him sleep in. I would definitely get Food Therapy at least for her if at all possible. The Reflux may be a food or environmental allergy/sensitivity though. I'd check all your food and non-food for gluten. I found that our previous hand soap and hair soap had wheat as a filler. I also found that food allergy tests are useless. As her mama you know her best... trial and error is probably going to be your best bet in finding the reflux problem.

     

    Hope at least some of this was helpful.

     

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  6. So after you spend 30 to 40 min. a day on math do you then assign your daughter 3 hours of math homework and refuse to help her with it if she has a question or concern about a method she has previously learned that day? That is basically what CC does. Only in every subject, not just math. But since you mentioned math we'll go with that. CC has tied the hands of the parents... they can not even say weather a problem is correct or not... because even though they know and under stand that 5 or something plus 2 of something equals 7 of that same kind of thing... it isn't the 'preferred' method (or rather methods) that is/are taught.

     

    CC Math is not SM it is not even New math. We've tried SM and it didn't work for my children. I liked it okay, but it was too colorful and distracting for my children. They needed to learn one concept at a time... not all four operations at once. As a homeschooler I was able to say, "Hey, this isn't working, I'll look elsewhere for a better fit." I had the instructions on how to help my child learn the method I was expecting myself to teach him and I couldn't make it work. So...

     

    Even still CC doesn't actually teach all four operations at once... it teaches four methods that are more labor intensive then simply teaching algorithms.  These parents are not given an instruction sheet on how to prove 5+2=7 in 4 different ways. So maybe part of the issue with CC is that parents can't say hey this isn't working for my kid... can he just learn one method. It might also include that parents can no longer help their first grader with a math problem because when they  get to school their math sheet is marked with 20 red marks. One of those problems was 5+2=7 and the parent is scratching their head wondering how 5+2 is no longer 7. 

     

    They can't just write a 5, a plus sign, a 2,an equal sign and a 7 on their page... they have to write....

    5+2= 7 2+5=7

       5         2

    + 2     + 5

    -----   -----

       7       7

    and... If I have five apples and two oranges then I have seven fruit. Seven fruit are equal to five apples and two oranges and that works the same way as if I have two golf balls and five bowling balls which will equal seven balls total. And if I take away five of the seven balls I will have two balls left.

     

    By the way if she writes apples "aples" or five as "fiv" the entire problem is wrong. If she says five bowling balls and seven balls it's wrong. Even if she knows that 5+2=7 if she doesn't know that five apples plus two oranges equals seven fruit she's getting a big fat red mark on this problem.  There's also this really confusing graph thing that they have to use (not like the SM graphs). Now multiply that by thirty. Oh, and then have you teach this concept to your child without the aid of the Teacher Manual or ever having learned the concept yourself. If she does the stupid graph thing wrong and gets the other three components right... the whole problem is wrong.

     

    This child has just spent 5 to 6 hours in school doing academics. Then she spent three hours doing her social study, and language arts homework, now she has 30 problems in math that she has to write  3 to 5 sentences in each and work the problem 3 other ways. She also has to come up with all these different choices of mental manipulatives on her own... because her parent aren't supposed to and probably can't help her.

     

    So if the parental outrage at CC is confusing you... and you are wondering why so many PS parents are ticked off... spend your next school day teaching every subject 4 times and then give your daughter 3 to 5 hours of homework after school and it won't be confusing to you any longer.

     

     

  7. None of my children are high school yet. When my oldest was at that age when the "big yellow bus" can down our street and he didn't get on. He asked me what it was like. I actually asked the school system if he could ride it one day, just to see what it was like. Oh, those days when I thought they wanted my boy to thrive. Of course, they said no. ha So we got a ride on a city bus. And then we took a taxi. And we rode in a trolly car (not a real one, unfortunately). We rode the tram at the zoo too. Then there wasn't anymore bad feelings about missing the big yellow bus.. and it was decided that our van was safer, and more comfy then all those other choices.

     

    Fast forward a few years and a move to another US state. Our local elementary school teaches for only 5 hours including lunch starting this year. There is no art class, no music class, no field trips, no big yellow buses, no physical education class, no recess, no school library, no school media room, no more readers, no math text books. The school does have five brand spanking new buildings, beautiful brand new play equipment that my tax dollars payed for against our voting wishes(but do you remember they don't get recess anymore and they can't play on them during their 20 min lunch either because there is no adult supervision at that time). Instead the kids get, 25 to 30 worksheets a day to fill out at home. They do teach sex education, sexual orientation (two separate classes), CC new math and creative spelling in K-6th. I know some schools have gone from having a central library to having classroom libraries. This is not the case here... there are no books at the school. The kids get weekly packets for K-6th grade. They have to staple their own "books" together each week... with staples that they must provide from home.

     

     My son is 13 now. Last year he was saying how he misses out on Art classes at public school, until he met one of the school art teachers for 9th grade in our district. He was taking an adult watercolor class that she was teaching. She told him how his classes at the art center have much better prepared him then a pubic school class would have. She noted how quickly he picked up the material and how he went home and practiced on his own. She told him how not one of her talented ps kids did this in the 35 years that she's been teaching art. Also she told him that it cost more for her students to take an art class then the $35 class he was taking. I later asked what she meant by costing more... I thought art was a free subject. She told me each child has to bring their own supplies (same as ds city art center class) and they had to pay the "pay to play fee" of $250. I knew this was required for band and sports but didn't realize it was for choir, theater, shop, home economics and foreign language lessons as well. She told me at the end of my sons class that he had produce more finished pieces of art then any one of her 12 classes (which were half semester classes) had. That's a total of 45 days. My son's class was eight sessions.

     

    Our local public (free) high school requires all seniors to pay a senior fee for prom (even if the kid doesn't go to prom), graduations fees (even if he doesn't graduate). They are called "senior fees" (total of over $3,000 if he goes on the senior trip) and do not include cap and gown, senior rings, letters, or yearbooks. My nephew is a Sophomore this year and had to pay $1,000 for his classes, not including text books (they have to buy their text books), flash drives, pencils, paper, backpack, school clothes. He has average classes if he had AP or Honors classes it would have been more. And even though he was bused to school last year he doesn't get bused this year. There is a lunch room fee. Yes, to use the lunch room (not to buy food there), and you have to pay it even if you choose to go off campus for lunch. There is a gym fee even if you don't have P.E. There is a parking fee for everyone 16 and older even if you don't own a car. There is a library fee even though there is NO LIBRARY at the school. I thought maybe the "library fee" was for e-books or for a kindle/nook the kids would use during the school year... nope.

     

    So I used to think they would be missing out on things as they grew older, especially the High School years... but now I know we wouldn't even be able to afford all the pay to play fees and extra fees that my sil has to pay each year for her son.

     

     

     

     

  8. One of the questions today - fill in the blank - my favorite person is, my favorite thing is, etc.

     

    Ten minutes later, he is still hung up on the "favorite person" thing. He knows there isn't a right or wrong answer. I have tried to explain to him to just say/type the first thing that comes into his mind. I have explained to him why he can't take all day for questions like this, explained that the answer is not important, told him he can reply with something silly, etc. He says this can't be true or else the program would not say "favorite," but have other instructions.

     

     

    So if the answer isn't important why does he have to do this exercise at all? This doesn't seem like the right program for a thinking mind. It sounds like something for a cookie cutter or robot child. I agree with your son... if it says favorite then it means favorite. But then I never did like fill in the blank.

  9. ... I wish there were a "sensory store" that we could go to and just let him find things he likes to fidget with/ rub, pinch, etc.  Barring that, how do I sort this out without having access to the stuff to test?

     

    Here are some great "sensory stores" that my son's occupational therapist frequents...

    Dollar Tree

    Michaels

    Family Dollar

    Hobby Lobby

    Walmart

     

    My son has several fidget boxes with lots of odds and ends in them. He no longer uses them during school but some items in his fidget boxes are...legos, screws, bolts and nuts, rubber bands, squishy and spiky balls, balloons filled with rice, sand, gluten free flour, Alvera gel, spiders, snakes, bottle caps, swatches of cloth, samples from the carpet store, samples from the paint store (the smooth glossy paper), paper clips, erasers, brads (for scrapbooking), foam pieces (even the bits that might have been tossed in the trash), paint stirrers are great you can cut them into little squares, etc. 

     

    A fabric store has scraps that you can usually buy cheap. We have some wooly cloth, silky cloth and sand paper in one of his sensory boxes. A 98c plastic pencil box is the perfect size to store fidgets in. Get all your stuff together and let your child make 3 or 4 boxes so that he can have a variety of choices. If your child is still mouthing things you may want to take care with what you allow and what you don't.

     

    The only thing you really may want to purchase from a specialty store are therapy bands. You may be able to get one from a physical therapist near you for a cheaper price then a catalog.

     

    Therapy Putty can be made more cheaply then bought... Homemade Therapy Putty. Unless you get a great deal. It is messy though and can stick to carpet just like real Therapy Putty. Oh and a great fun thing to do is put it on an old speaker and let it dance... sorry off topic. But still your son may enjoy this...Non-Newtonian Fluid on a Speaker

  10. Dyslexia is not a problem with phonetic awareness it is a disconnection in the brain dealing with the ability to process written information. People with dyslexia see and process information differently then people who do not have dyslexia. People with dyslexia think differently, they have a different process of storing and retrieving information... and when asked to use typical methods of learning to read or write they will fail. There are quite a few good remediation programs for people with dyslexia.

     

    However, what you have described does not sound like dyslexia but rather dyscalculia. Dyscalculia is similar to dyslexia but is a disconnection with numbers. Dyscalculia usually goes beyond written issues with numbers and includes verbal issues as well. At least in many cases.

     

    Many children with visual issues not pertaining to dyslexia or dyscalculia will appear to have one or both when in actuality they have a tracking problem of some sort. My son mixes up b and d (he is 11). He does not have dyslexia but Convergence Insufficiency. With VT many issues have cleared up. He never had reading or math issues but had sever writing issues several grades below age/grade. He also was dxed with ADHD at 6 and Autism. After 6 VT sessions and homework he is writing on grade level. All ADHD behaviors are gone and he is starting to look at people in the eyes for the first time.

     

    There are many ways the eyes can go wrong. A vision therapist can usually see you within a few weeks of calling and can tell you if your child should be screened for dyslexia or dyscalculia if there are no vision issues. VT's are very busy so they aren't usually going to waist your time with needless therapy. A good Vision Therapist will be up front with what they expect from you and what you can expect from them.

     

     

  11. My children don't do sports really. So we haven't had to deal with that... by design. Dh had some bad experiences with sports as a child. But that hasn't made our children exempt from inferiority complex issues. I've had adults with and w/out children in tow tell me or my child to "stop showing off" when at the check out stand. The first time was when my son was just 1.5 and was going through a self made list of all the animals he knew in alphabetical order, just because he was trying to occupy himself while we waited. That was the first time, but by far not the last time.

     

    A few weeks ago this same son was sketching in his notebook while waiting for me to check out after shopping. The woman behind us said to him... oh, you like to doodle. He said, "Yes, ma'am." She looked at his sketch of the cashier, and said, "Oh, that's awful my nephew can draw a lot better then that. You're nothing special." I refrained from throttling the woman. "I smiled instead, and said, "Oh, he's special alright, to me, to God and to all the people who matter." She gave me a disgusted look and asked, "What does that mean?" I figured it was pretty self explanatory, I guess not. The cashier smiled sweetly at her and said, "Well, I'd guess that means you don't matter, ma'am. She didn't say another word.

     

    Most of the time we just pass the bean dip to be honest... but every once in a while... rude just has to be dressed down... even if it is in kind.

  12. I'm looking to see just where my children's comprehension levels are. The National Right to Read Foundation is fine for my 6yo because she actually ends the test. But I want to test the comprehension and sight/phonetic awareness of my older children who didn't miss any words on the NRRF. Is there any free site or even a cheap pay site that isn't a long test that I can give my children? I'm not looking for anything official, just a ballpark so that I can better challenge them. Thanks.

     

     

  13. At 6 when my son was 1st dxed with ADHD and SPD they did not ask us about any brain injuries. At 9 when my son was dxed with PDD-NOS the Neuropsych. form asked to list all head injuries weather there was loss of consciousness and/or vomiting or not. The Neuropsych did not do a cat scan to confirm or rule out head injuries. At 10 his dx was changed to Aspergers and a cat scan was done (because of another concussion, the boy is reckless). No brain damage was found at that time... some odd white matter in the wrong place, but no brain damage.

  14. I could have written your first post... and probably did several years ago with my oldest. With the math issues. He didn't really have any other issues... great at LA and penmanship and well all around. But math. One minute he could get 24+17 the next he couldn't recall 1+1. It was frustrating and heart breaking to see him struggle.

     

    We had him evaluated when he was 7. The psych. said possible ADD and dyscalculia to take him to Sylvan or Kumon. Since it was too expensive and too far to drive we looked at how they presented the material and found a program that did the same. We now use Math U See for him. We went back to the beginning and progressed at his pace. At first it was half a page until it began to click. He is no math wiz mind you but at 13 he does 3 pages of math in an hour with only a couple mistakes usually. Using the manipulatives to learn the lesson and continuing to use them until they are no longer needed really helped my oldest finally visualize how math works.

     

    He doesn't have PDD-NOS so you may be seeing some of those issues with the math problem. But my Aspie 11yo has done MUS from the beginning and has not had math issues (aside from a misunderstood lesson here or there). It is a four process approach, teach/model the problem, use manipulatives, say what you are doing, then teach it back to you, that really helped with all 4 of my kids. So when we did 1+1, I wrote out the problem, built the problem with 1 green block and 1 green block and one 2 orange block. Then I said one plus one equals two. Then I gave him the blocks and had him do the same. He has much better recall now then he did then. He can add, subtract, multiply and divide 5 or 6 numbers in his head now. He still struggles a bit more then the other kids, but he isn't so disheartened as he used to be.

  15. We did OT for 5.5 years for penmanship issues... he had a death grip too... and would poke holes in his paper and brake pencils from pushing too hard. He had other issues that they focused on as well...SPD with serious proprioceptive, vestibular, auditory, and oral issues that they were able to correct mostly. He still has oral issues. But he also had a vision issue that the OT could do nothing about. He did 6 sessions over 12 weeks in VT and he went from 3rd grade writing to beginning 5th grade. He still has a bit of work to do before he's at grade level, but he finally has a fighting chance now that he can see well enough to put the pencil where it needs to be.

  16. Nita, I just wanted to toss this out as a question, given how much you the attention thing was frustrating you.  Have you done or considered a psych eval?  Might be time..  You've eliminated all the physical stuff with all the therapies you've done, and now you're down to what the psych can explain and help you work with.

     

     

    His Neurologist suggested he take Ritalin or a similar med. for focus when he just 10. We chose not to since he wasn't behind academically we looked for other options. So we got a psych eval. at that time.

     

    The psych. said...his words exactly "Under no circumstance should you send this kid to a public or private school. They will eat him alive." He also told us to take him off wheat, dairy, soy, potatoes, all dyes and refined sugar. So we did that for like a minute... then we did a gfcfsf diet with no dye. He's added back the dairy (small amounts) with no ill effects. We let him have the sauce and cheese to a pizza a few months ago... had no idea it had red dye in the sauce. He flipped out, became violent (he's never been violent in any way). When we figured it out we tested our red dye theory again with two red hots... 20 minutes later he was raging. So we are very careful now to not give him any dye. We went back to the psych. who insisted that the ins. do a referral for VT in Nov. I think. The VT fit us in this summer because we were willing to be flexible. She has a 9 month waiting list.

     

    I don't think we will be having near as many issues with focus in future though. He has gone from needing to be redirected every 2 min. last year to every 30 to 40 min. this year. A vast improvement. With math and science, his two favorite subjects, he can go a whole hour without being redirected.

  17. He's doing great with the different types of visual puzzles. We've done several mazes and other stuff I got from the OT. The VT did not give him any of those type exercises though.

     

    The OT did know something was wrong with his eyes... but did not connect it to his writing. She did quite a bit of VT type stuff with him, but not being an eye doctor didn't really know what to do for him.

     

    He was denied even a referral for 6 years because he's Autistic and that is why he can't write well, or ran into walls. And his Focus issues were ADHD and couldn't possibly be helped by VT even though we asked and asked. We finally wore them down enough to get the eval... and the Eye Doctor (we picked just the right one) wrote a letter detailing how much money they will be spending for my son's treatment over the next 10 years if he doesn't get 6 sessions of VT... and the cost of being sued for the misdiagnosis of ADHD and forced meds. The Ins. finally caved.

     

    He was writing mid-third at the end of the school year last year... but only 3 sentences of copywork (2-3 grade paper) with the copy on the page above with several errors and it took an hour per sentence... He was usually spent, and crying the whole time. He wrote a full page (wide rule filler paper) with 4 spelling errors and 3 capitalization errors... he forgot to capitalize his name, and Soviet Union. The spelling errors were appropriate for his age. Last year he would misspell cat by adding a letter or omitting one then when asked to spell it verbally would get it right every time. These 4 words were words he really didn't know how to spell.

  18. Just finished VT... Did 5.5 years of OT, 6 months of PT and 2 years of ST. No hippo therapy but did have a Benik Vest for a year (that was fun NOT). Anyway, his 1st eval. said Convergence Insufficiency. His re-eval. was normal. We have seen vast improvement in Focus as in concentration, Stamina, Writing (our last effort after OT just said they can do no more for him), did I say Focus... oh the focus he has now!

     

    All we need to do now is get him to stop eating screws :drool: and pencils, and paper clips, and bottle caps, and, and and... oh, and make a friend or two would be nice.

  19. My son was reading just a bit slow, a page every two minutes but he said the letters moved and swam on the page. When he was little he would run into walls all the time. He had a little trouble learning to read when I taught him... but I just assumed that was because of his age 4 and his personality being different then his more compliant and eager to learn brother. But I recall more then once him telling me how the letters swim... or their were halos around the letters.

     

    His penmanship was very bad, after 5.5 years of OT for penmanship his therapist basically told us there was nothing more she could do for him and that he'd better learn to type. At 11 he was still writing his name with three capital letters... and none were the first letter, all the letters were different sizes and he never wrote them the same way. At the end of the school year last year he could only write 3 sentences in about 3 hours with many tears.

     

    We took him to a developmental ophthalmologist and they found that he had convergence insufficiency (has most of the same symptoms as ADHD). He had 6 VT sessions (with homework) over the summer. I noticed after just a couple of weeks he seemed to be a bit more calm then he had been.

     

    We started school 3 weeks ago. His first literature book for the year was The Hobbit. We all started reading it on Mon. Sept. 2, he finished it on the 4th. Then I had him read Animal Farm (10 chapter book). I asked him to read a chapter and then he could go play 5 hours later he told me that he been reading all that time and that he was more than half way through the book. The next day he finished the book and wrote a full page essay on Animal Farm without a single tear and it was legible.

     

    Last year I was having to redirect him every 2 minutes to his task... now I only have to redirect every 30 to 40 min. He is so much more focused on his tasks... they are getting done more quickly and he's being a lot more independent in his schoolwork then last year. It's like he's a whole different kid.

  20. I went to PS and when I went to college I asked for assistance. I had no IEP but knew I needed more help to get through then was usually offered. It was a CC and these might be more flexible then a 4 year school. Anyway, I just asked my adviser for assistance and the school did a test to see where I was and what I really needed assistance in. I went through 13 years of school and in one week of testing before the start of my freshman year they were able to tell me that I had dyslexia and got me assistance to overcome the challenges. I know that our local satellite state university does a similar test if asked. All students are entitled to have tutoring upon request. Most colleges offer this service free or at an inexpensive cost. I think the best thing to do is call the colleges that your child is interested in and ask what they require for accommodations. They will have alternatives that you can offer to show your child needs assistance besides an IEP or 504. Remember... they want your money... and they also want to keep their grad. numbers up, so helping your child is in their best interest too. If they don't want to bother then it's probably not the right school for your child anyway.

  21. I have only bought two book with the word "gifted" on the cover for my HG son. The first was a story book about a boy who was gifted, something along the lines of Encyclopedia Brown when he was 3 or 4. The second was 101 Success Secrets for Gifted Kids, which is a book of advice from teachers who do gt programs, gifted kids and gifted adults. He reads bits from it when it suits him. When we buy our next crop of books he'll be getting The Gifted Teen Survival Guide. I got these books for him because we live in a community where the average IQ is closer to 80. So he's different, he sees it, he has trouble coping with it. There isn't any of that, "I'm better" stuff with him. It's more like "What's wrong with me?" So knowing that there are other people out there with higher IQ's, who actually enjoy learning and being intellectual is a good thing for him.

     

    I've looked at those books for my youngest accelerated two. They just look like busy work to me. This is a house of penmanship haters so those busywork type books don't fly. I've had a better time using Lollipop Logic and Visual Memory Books. In fact, the only "workbooks" we use are Shakespeare, Analogies, Logic and Visual Memory (mazes). We alternate them throughout the year.

  22. I think it said something about tracking issues, as well as, usability issues (something to do with how the tech works). There was a bit about the brightness being off. The test was done in 2010 and there has been some improvement in the usability part with the Nook, dimmer print, ability to re-size font, etc.. they even have a color filter on some now. Which might speed your reading ability up a bit if you have CI or some other convergence issues or dyslexia. This feature is not on the Kindle though. The tracking issues remain, it is a brain thing. The way we look at a computer screen is not the same way we look at a book. Our brain interprets  the information differently, picture vs. code. That's why when you are teaching children to read you can't just use online books to teach reading...the information for text in print and text on screen are stored in different parts of the brain. I'll see if I can find that study later today or tomorrow.

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